


Adagio For Strings

by FireDancer



Category: Samuel Barber (Classical Music), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Experimental, Feelschat, Gen, Music, My brain is a strange place, Steve Feels, This is what happens when Feelschat encourages me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-18
Updated: 2013-02-18
Packaged: 2017-11-29 17:13:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/689444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireDancer/pseuds/FireDancer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As resilient as humanity was, even the stoutest soul should crumble beneath such overwhelming grief…  Yet the spirit swells, not with hope, but with determination.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adagio For Strings

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Adagio For Strings](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/17474) by Samuel Barber. 



> This is, without a doubt, the oddest inception for a fanfiction that I've ever had. Listening to Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings is always a moving experience but when one adds contemplations of Steve Roger's staggering loss it becomes even more heart-rending. It can, of course, be read and understood without looking through the lens of The Avengers, or even without the music, but in order to get the full effect (and understand why this song provokes such emotion in me that I wrote a fanfiction for it) I hope you at very least listen to the music before or during your reading.
> 
> You can find a beautiful rendition of it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRMz8fKkG2g or in the 'inspired by' link.
> 
> (Possible triggers for depression and grief, if you are particularly sensitive to these issues you may want to skip this one, though the allusion to depression isn't at all specific.)

It starts slowly, with a dawning realization that the pain, the all-consuming sorrow and loss, is real. It’s real and it isn’t abating; it isn’t going to slowly give way to happiness the way it always had before.

This thing, this burden of tragedy, had seemed too much to be possible. How could so much grief exist in one heart? As resilient as humanity was, even the stoutest soul should crumble beneath it… Yet the spirit swells, not with hope, but with determination.

The loss is overwhelming, but it could be borne. It had to be; life continued.

There is a kind of dignity to it. A steady grace that continues under the weight of sorrow until momentum alone should give the means to go on.

For a time it seems it does, but the burden grows no lighter and it becomes a struggle to pull air into lungs already full with grief. It seems a cruel miracle that a heart so sore could continue to beat.

Everything seems to tremble with exhaustion of the soul, each moment growing worse until the only option is to cry for help, sinking to the ground under a weight that can no longer be lifted. _Anyone, someone, please! I cannot do this alone anymore. Grief is drowning me. Loss is chaining me. Loneliness is smothering me. Help me. Please. Help me. Anyone…_

After the silent plea there is nothing, just a stillness that stretches like a hand yearning for another that has fallen out of reach.

.

.

.

 

And then… then the searching hand is no longer empty.

The other does not lighten the burden, instead bringing the weight of a different grief, but four hands and two hearts can lift what no one could manage alone.

Loss doesn’t fade, but the sharp edges wear down with time and the touch of another’s hands, and spirits grow stronger for the weight that they shoulder. Acceptance makes the pain another part of life, tucked into the corners of new memories and past joys, woven into smiles and breaths and steps on sidewalks until it is a framework for a road well-traveled.

In the end there is softness and peace that leads into a kinder stillness, echoing with tragedy but also the quiet triumph of spirits unbroken.


End file.
